With three ships in final production and one flight scheduled for December, SpaceX is demonstrating its tenacity in its quest to find life beyond Earth. Following two successful explosive launches earlier this year, a third test flight is planned.
Owner of SpaceX Elon Musk revealed the third launch’s schedule in a response to a post he made on X Sunday, November 19. When he first released images of the Starship launch pad, Musk did so to describe how it looked after the day’s flight.
Musk responded by saying that the “hardware for Starship’s third flight should be ready to fly in 3 to 4 weeks.” Musk mentioned building more ships as well.
SpaceX launched the second fully integrated Starship flight from Starbase at the Boca Chica Beach launch site on Saturday, November 18. Launching Starship into space and detaching it from its booster was the aim of the second launch.
“The second flight test will debut a hot-stage separation system and a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines, in addition to reinforcements to the pad foundation and a water-cooled steel flame deflector, among many other enhancements,” according to SpaceX.
The ship accomplished a hot-stage separation with success, but after completing a flap and “boostback burn,” it exploded. After launching through the booster and finding its course, the ship entered space, but eight minutes after takeoff, it lost contact and reported a malfunction.
Starship will serve as a fully reusable means of transportation if a third flight occurs successfully the following month. It is intended to transport both crew and cargo to Mars, the moon, and Earth orbit.